Written on Thursday December 8<\/p>\n
Feeling bleak and alone again.\u00a0 My sense of a vast compassion<\/a> holding the world is gone.\u00a0 O gosh nothing means anything.\u00a0 I\u2019m back to why bother.<\/p>\n Christia wanted to watch a video of Gangaji talking about \u201cWho are you… really.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t resonate for me.\u00a0 Sometimes \u2014 lots of times \u2014 I have no idea who I am.\u00a0 Lately, I\u2019ve been very comfortable with that not knowing.\u00a0 I\u2019ve actually never thought of myself as any particular thing, not a daughter or a wife, not an astronomer, or astronomy teacher or dance teacher.\u00a0 I recognize that I am a teacher, not of any particular subject, I teach all the time.\u00a0 My book<\/a> was a teaching, my slide show<\/a> was a teaching, Journey Into Courage<\/a> was a teaching \u2014 I\u2019m teaching all the time even if I don\u2019t realize it.\u00a0 I never felt like I was anything in particular, never tried to create a persona to impress other people.\u00a0 Really, I was always trying to fix myself.\u00a0 I saw myself as defective or broken or wounded.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t get attached to that as an identity, partly I had no wheelchair so no one could see I was broken \u2014 my senior year at Wellesley, after I broke my ankle, I wore orthopedic shoes and walked with crutches and some students got quiet and looked uncomfortable as I walked by, and I wanted to turn around and yell at them that it was temporary \u2014 I didn\u2019t want their pity.\u00a0 Now I see that part of what made me angry was that I was crippled invisibly.\u00a0 No one ever saw my pain.<\/p>\n Mother never gave me any direct identity \u2014 since I could never please her, I never became a \u201cpeople-pleaser.\u201d\u00a0 I was a good student, because I was intelligent and eager to learn.<\/p>\n I have no idea who I am right now.\u00a0 It\u2019s not important to me.\u00a0 What is important to me?\u00a0 Peace, Truth, Justice, Mercy, Compassion.\u00a0 I want to embody these things and help create more of them on the planet.\u00a0 O yes, the planet is important to me.\u00a0 I work to heal myself, hoping to be more effective at making a difference in how humans treat each other and their planet.<\/p>\n I\u2019m thinking about that Jenny with her crutches, angry at the ones who are uncomfortable, wanting to say \u201cIt\u2019s temporary,\u201d and at the same time angry on behalf of really disabled people who get treated with the same pity.\u00a0 I feel such love for her.<\/p>\n I think I must be badly depressed, or maybe even in total despair.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been reading Jalaja\u2019s book \u201cEvolving Toward Peace<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 She says some wonderful things, tells some heart-warming stories, but the problem as she defines it \u2014 that our control-addicted Western Civilization is destroying the planet \u2014 looks to me too huge to change.\u00a0 I suppose if I could even change myself from \u201chead-centered\u201d thinking to \u201cheart-centered\u201d thinking at least I\u2019d be much happier.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been working on it, working on my strong judgement of Trump and his cronies, but it\u2019s hard.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been able to forgive most of the people who voted for him, because they thought he would help them have better lives.\u00a0 I have such an odd split reaction: one part of me wants to run away from them \u2014 as I strengthened the wall between me & someone who voted for Trump, and the other part of me is intensely curious to know what they needed\/wanted so that they voted that way.\u00a0 What I want is that feeling of my heart softening and opening that happens when someone shares their pain and vulnerability.<\/p>\n When I read down the list of characteristics of control-centered people, I have a lot of them.\u00a0 For me it\u2019s come from having capricious, malicious, and willful<\/a> parents, and learning that I can\u2019t trust any bigger being to take care of me.\u00a0 I\u2019m guessing that\u2019s the main reason my heart is closed down so much because there\u2019s nothing I can trust.\u00a0 I\u2019m wondering if I\u2019m closed to myself but still open to others.\u00a0 I think of Jan always commenting on my big open heart when she hugs me.<\/p>\n Afterthought: \u00a0I think about how my parents marriage was one long battle for control. \u00a0Also the time when I lived in the Zen house, and my job was taking care of the kitchen. \u00a0Looking at it now, I see that no one ever assigned me to the kitchen, I just thought I should do it because the others were all working. \u00a0They told me at one point that they were afraid of helping because I was possessive about the kitchen. \u00a0I was shocked, I wasn’t possessive, I felt that I had to do it all because I couldn’t expect help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Written on Thursday December 8 Feeling bleak and alone again.\u00a0 My sense of a vast compassion holding the world is gone.\u00a0 O gosh nothing means anything.\u00a0 I\u2019m back to why bother. Christia wanted to watch a video of Gangaji talking … Continue reading